Poker Room Review:
This is the largest poker site we have reviewed. They commonly have over 10,000 real-money players playing during peak hours. When you include play money players, they have over 50,000 players during peak hours. Most of their traffic is their live games and their single table tournaments. Their graphics are very slick and enjoyable. Currently their promotions center on giving away seats to the 2005 WSOP.
Use the following codes to get a bonus on your first deposit at Empire Poker.
Use REAL35 to get $35 on any deposit.
Use WSOP2005 to get 20% of your deposit (up to $120 bonus.)
In addition to bonuses, Empire has many promotions for its players. Most of these center on rewarding players with seats to the World Series of Poker. They will have a freeroll tournament each month with the top two finishers winning seats to the 2005 WSOP. This will occur near the end of the month and is open to players who played 4000 raked hands or more in a given month. Empire also has a Tournament Masters promotion. Each month, the top five single-table tournament players and top five multi-table tournament players compete in a single-table tournament. The winner gets a free entry into the 2005 WSOP. Empire also will be hosting freerolls for entries into the WSOP through their VIP Club.
Empire also hosts daily and monthly cash freerolls. For example, Empire hosts two daily $500 freerolls. They are open to the first 250 or 500 players who register. They also host a $5000 freroll for new, real-money players that is held at the end of the month.
Empire also has been having a lot of guaranteed prize pool tournaments lately. This means that no matter how many people enter the tournament, Empire will make sure that the prize pool is at least as much as they guarantee it to be. For example, suppose they run a $1000 guaranteed tournament. The buyin is $10. If 100 or more people enter the tournament, then it will just be run like any other tournament. However, if only 70 people entered that tournament, then Empire would add $300 to the prize pool to make sure that the prize pool is at least $1000.
Empire Poker has also launched a VIP club. It rewards players for playing at Empire Poker. Players receive a VIP point for every 10 raked hands they play, 1 point for every $2 in single table tournament fees they pay, and 1 point for every $1 in multi-table tournament fees they pay. These VIP point rates are doubled when someone is officiallly a VIP, which means they have 5000 points or more. So, once you are a VIP, you will earn 2 points for every 10 raked hands you play. Currently, VIP points help you earn entry into special freerolls, such as freerolls that reward seats to the WSOP, and may also be redeemed for prizes such as T-shirts. It takes a long time to earn a lot of VIP points, but they are a nice bonus if you are a very active player.
This place is great about cashouts. The first one may take a bit longer, but afterwards, the process is very quick (generally 24-48 hours through Neteller). If you have the highest level of player status (I'm not sure how you achieve it; I just know that it takes awhile and occurs once you have many deposits/cashouts), cashouts to Neteller routinely come within 6 hours.
They only display the average pot size in the ring games, which is very frustrating. All in all, they provide you with little information about the games. I recommend watching the game for a minute or two before joining to see how loose everyone is playing.
The competition is very soft at Empire. There are tends of thousands of players at this site, so you should definitely be able to find an easy game to play. In the live games, often the competition is wild. It's not strange to see people go to the flop with Q6. However, the site is large and does have its fair share of professionals. But in general, this site has some of the juiciest games at all stakes. I wish they had more high stakes games here though. The highest game that is readily available is only $15-$30 Limit Hold'em. I think they need to have more $30-$60 tables and add higher stakes No-Limit Hold'em games.
Their live help feature is pretty helpful. But some of the agents aren't as competent as you'd hope. They also have phone support, which is nice.
Texas Holdem, Omaha hi-lo, Omaha, 7-stud
Fixed Limit: $.50-1, $1-2,$2-4,$3-6, $5-10, $10-20, $15-30 (all are popular)
Pot Limit/No Limit: $.50-1, $1-2, $2-4
Single- and Multi-table Fixed-limit Holdem, NL/PL Holdem, Fixed Omaha hi-lo, PL Omaha hi-lo, Fixed 7-stud (single-table only). They have tons of single-table tournaments but few multi-table ones. They also have sit-n-go multi-table tournaments.
Single:$5, $10, $20, $30, $50, $100, $200 ($50 and $100 are only for holdem, holdem tournaments at all limits are popular for both single and multi)
Multi:$5, $10, $20, $30, $50, $100
$50
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